Tiger Woods didn’t miss the British Open, he lost the British Open. Venus and Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport aren’t missing the East West Bank Classic, they’re losing this week’s tennis tournament in Carson. If the Dodgers don’t win the division, it won’t be because Rafael Furcal had the bad luck to get a bad back, it’ll be because he blew the season for them.

Pardon me while I try out a new attitude about sports injuries.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of big events being spoiled by the absence of an injured superstar or two, and you’re fed up with ballclubs using injuries as excuses.

Injuries have always been regarded as pure misfortune, accidents, acts of God. We talk as if it’s just a rotten shame the best golfer in the world wasn’t at Royal Birkdale and the Wimbledon finalists aren’t at Home Depot Center. We argue about whether Paddy Harrington deserves an asterisk for winning a major tournament that didn’t include Tiger.

Well, not anymore, not me: From now on, I’m looking at injuries not as bad luck but as what they are, which is a particularly painful form of athletic failure.

Where did this whole thing about injuries as bad luck get started, anyway?

When you think of notable sports injuries, do you remember many athletes getting randomly conked on the head by falling space stations? Many basketball players getting nipped by snakes at the free-throw line? Many hockey players tumbling into ice fissures created by sudden earthquakes?

No, 99.44 percent of sports injuries are caused by one of the following:

Undertraining.

Overtraining.

Using the juice.

Stopping using the juice.

Stupidity, as in outfielders who run into walls more than they have to.

Clumsiness, like pitchers tripping over themselves fielding bunts.

Small-and-slowness, as a way of causing one guy to get clobbered by another guy.

Bad genetics, meaning you just weren’t built to survive the rigors of top-flight sports in the first place.

So the variables are preparation, smarts, coordination, physical talent and durability.

In other words, the things that make an athlete healthy or hurt are the same things that make an athlete good or bad.

Nothing about luck in there.

Staying in one piece is part of the game. For a professional athlete, it’s the No. 1 part of the game. So let’s stop excusing players who, as one of the cliches goes, keep Falling Victim to the Injury Bug.

Tiger Woods found that even his body has its limits, went in for knee surgery and missed a major tournament for the first time last week. Paddy Harrington stayed healthy enough (though only barely, going into the British Open with a dodgy wrist) to get out on the course. And Harrington is supposed to apologize for winning the Tigerless Open?

Venus Williams announced Friday she was dropping out of the East West Bank Classic because of a bum right knee. Sister Serena said Tuesday she was dropping out because of a bum left knee. Whoever wins now, probably Jelena Jankovic, will be thoroughly deserving. In fact, double-thoroughly deserving. She showed up! Ligaments intact!

Rafael Furcal, hitting .366 at the time, hurt his back in May, had an operation this month and might miss the rest of the season. This will be the big excuse if the Dodgers don’t make the playoffs or crack .500, whichever comes last. Some excuse. The shortstop having his back go out is the same to me as the center fielder having his swing go out.

In 1985, before a Dodgers-Cardinals playoff game, St.Louis outfielder Vince Coleman suffered what might be the freakiest on-the-field injury of all time. During batting practice on a cloudy evening at Busch Stadium, the grounds crew activated the mechanical tarpaulin near the first-base line.

Coleman saw it rolling toward him too late, and as he tried to jump out over it, the cylinder pinned one foot to the Astroturf. The resulting ankle injury sidelined the stolen-bases king for the rest of the playoffs and World Series.

I was one of the reporters who got to the park early enough to witness the, uh, accident. Later arrivers asked me to describe what happened.

“Isn’t that just like a great athlete?” said Tom Boswell, the Washington Post columnist and a baseball romanticist. “Thinking he could save himself by jumping over the tarp instead of away from it?”

Coleman’s problem being that he was not quite a great enough athlete to pull it off. So he got hurt. Fair enough.

Athletes’ lives are all about getting the joints and muscles and mind to work faster and stronger and smarter. When they fail to quite get it done, we call them losers. When they fail completely to get it done, we call them unlucky.

No longer. From now on, a new attitude about ACLs, a new stance on strains. The DL stands for Designated Losers, and injury-prone is as bad as strikeout-prone.

For people paid to play games, staying in one piece isn’t a matter of chance. It’s their job. The truth hurts.

Kevin Modesti is a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Southern California News Group, covering the political scene in Los Angeles County. An L.A. native, he was a sports writer, columnist and editor for most of his career, and later an editorial board member, writer and editor in the Opinion section. He lives in the San Fernando Valley and is based in the Woodland Hills office.